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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Tuesday, September 1, 2015

The Mystery Of The 13th Guest (1943)

Starring Dick Purcell, Helen Parrish, Tim Ryan, Frank Faylen, John Duncan
Directed by William Beaudine
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A private investigator is hired to protect a young heiress whom her uncle fears may be the target of a murderer after her grandfather's fortune.

A fun mystery from Monogram Pictures that's one of the more entertaining outings from the low-budget studio, this picture has a fine cast and a good script.  After a setup similar to the one-by-one offings in Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the film fails to follow through on that pattern, and surely would have been more suspenseful with more murders spread out over a longer running time.  Purcell and Parrish are good leads however, and Ryan interestingly collaborated on the screenplay as well as playing the movie's cantankerous police lieutenant.